Introductory description

This module considers the cyber security consequences of virtualised systems and the opportunities that they offer. Focusing on software containerisation systems such as Docker, and comparing their properties with other virtualisation tools and techniques, the course looks at the trust relationships and the available security controls between the underlying operating system, the container, or other virtualised environment, and the software executing within the container.

Students on the module will explore the consequences of the fact that all software executes in some context and in some sort of container. It may be as an app on a mobile device, it may be the operating system on a laptop, it may be a virtual device hosted on the cloud, or it could be an embedded system. It is the container and the context that determine what a program does and what resources it can access. Getting this regulation correct is a significant challenge, giving away just enough resource to get the job done but limiting the resource to prevent additional undesirable things being possible.

The module provides students with practical experience of containerisation systems together with the insights necessary to think clearly about them in the context of cyber security. The course will equip them with the understanding they need to be able to hold meaningful conversations with experts in the field and will allow them to more effectively contribute to informed decision-making about cyber security.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Overall context:

• why is virtualisation and containment needed?

Development of containment in computing:

• bare metal evolution, instruction sets, clock speed, storage, multicore
• operating system, multitasking, scheduling, sharing and isolation
• root jails, virtualisation, containers
• resources: cpu cycles, storage, communications bandwidth, entropy, input, output.

Containment ecosystem:

• host, container (guest) and sibling containers (guests)
• virtualisation vs containerisation

Lifecycle of the provision of a service:

• concept, specification, design, development, versioning, signing, testing, deployment, maintenance, evolution, decommissioning, timescales

Security in virtualisation and containment:

• threats, sources, agents, vulnerabilities, exploits, vectors,
• controls, privilege, capabilities – in host and container (guest)
• resource separation, storage, execution, networking – in host and container (guest)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Analyse the security relationships within a virtualised ecosystem between a virtualised container and its sibling containers
• Analyse the security relationships within a virtualised ecosystem between a virtualised container and the underlying host
• Evaluate the extent to which a virtualised container ecosystem satisfies its desired security properties
• Configure a virtualised container ecosystem to achieve the desired security properties from the perspective of both the container and the underlying host.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Subject specific skills

Assessing security of cloud-based and virtualised systems.
Secure containerised systems design and deployment
Secure deployment of cloud-based systems

Transferable skills

Problem solving, critical thinking